29 years old, Bosnian

2013: Young Director Award – Film Festival di Cannes


My wheel is not something physical, but mental, human, a driving force that can put us in motion.
My wheel is a human wheel, realised through an animated movie, in which we see our world spinning faster and faster.
I strongly believe that we need to constantly work on our inner wheels. Only if we manage to invent our own inner force can we invent new things that make our life easier

Only 29 years old, director Sandin Puce is originally from Bosnia Herzegovina, but studied directing at the prestigious Film Academy in Ludwigsburg, Germany.
He won the 2013 Young Director Award, given in conjunction with the Cannes Film Festival, for his film “Frenki”.
He was a co-founder of the Film Club and the Short Film Festival in Mostar, and has worked on projects for companies like Adidas, Johnnie Walker and Opel, as well as working for the New York film critic Howard Feinstein.

Sandin was interested in the relationship between the artists and the marketplace into which his work enters. This is an issue for writers in the most-part, but more pressingly, I think for script-writers and writers for cinema.
He was also interested in exploring the connection between producers, artists and creatives and the general populace, and what they might want from an artist, what was expected of the artist, and what an artist might want to say about this relationship. This was a question that arose repeatedly: what is the relation between the public and the artist, and how do they influence each other?

Sandin seemed to be of the opinion, somewhat congruent with my own, that the job of the artist was to lead the public – as modernism saw itself doing. The public cannot be sure of what it wants until the artist presents them with an idea, criticism and reverence come thereafter. In some sense, he suggested, the artist has to be ahead of the public in terms of taste, they can then be lead.
His presentation, a sketch for a film, sought to investigate the rapid technological advancements in the world with the effort of its human population. A wheel rotated in the centre of the screen, and as we get closer we see interlocking limbs; hands grasping feet, faces contorted; a human drive chain. Through a window in this Brueghelian drama, we witness the developing world, its growth animated by the movement of the human wheel. Sandin’s filmography is prodigious, he’s made adverts for some really big companies, and each one has been highly conceptual; mixing his unique style with an underlying philosophical idea. They are like charged short stories, potent and immediate.
[Hanif Kureishi]

Do you consider your talent a gift or a burden?
I definitely see my talent as a great gift. The nice thing about this kind of gift is that it’s always changing, not like you are getting a computer or another object that does not evolve.

What you would do if one day you woke up and discovered you had lost your talent?
I would search for it in books, galleries, films and people until I found it again.

Who is the living talent you most admire?
People who pursue their dreams and beliefs.

What do you like about your talent and what don’t you like?
With my talent I never feel alone, and I like that very much. On the other hand, it takes a lot of time, like a little child, where you have sometimes less time for "normal" life.

When or where does your talent make you happy?
Always when I have a new idea, I'm happy.

If you could change your talent, how you would change it?
Honestly, I have no need to change it even I could, because it is constantly changing itself and thus me too.